the humanitarian costs that jomana has outlined is really staggering. i mean, we now have estimates of nearly half a million people killed mainly by the assad regime. 10 million people, perhaps, uprooted in one form or another. and that is horrendous and i think as americans we should be concerned about the fact that we have just turned a blind eye to this. but then there's this strategic -- the strategic factor and i'll just mention three things here and i'll stop. the one is, we have degraded our alliances in the region. we have denigrated our traditional allies. our traditional allies do have problems. we have problems. there's no doubt about that. by emphasizing those publicly and by moving away from our traditional allies that means the turks, the saudis, the israelis and so forth, we have not built structures in the region that are capable of contending with the challenges of the region with anything other than unilateral military force which is what we're supposed to be avoiding. so if there's another shock that comes, like a destabilization of s

the humanitarian costs that jomana has outlined is really staggering. i mean, we now have estimates of half million people killed. mainly by the assad regime. 10 million people perhaps? up rooted in one form or another. and that is horrendous and i think as americans we should be concerned about the fact that we have just turned a blind eye to this. but then there's this strategic -- the strategic factor and i'll just mention three things here and i'll stop. the one is, we have degraded our alliances in the region. we have denigrated our traditional allies. our traditional allies do have problems. we have problems. there's no doubt about that. by emphasizing those publicly and by moving away from our traditional allies that means the turks, the saudis, the israelis and so forth, we have not built structures in the region that are capable of con tending with the challenges of the region. with anything of other than unilateral military force, which is what we're supposed to be avoiding. if there is another shock that comes, like a destabilization of saudi

. >> jomana, thank you very much, both for your presentation here and also for the really important work you're doing and the information you're able to give us. i wanted to re-emphasize something that you said before when you started off by saying bashar al-assad is not a protector of christians. i think it's important to emphasize that not only because -- not only because it's not true, he's not a protector of minorities. plus, i'm concerned every time that that phrase has residence in washington or in the united states i feel that's not -- >> or in europe. >> anywhere. you know, that's -- the europ n europeans, it's up a to the europe 18s. here in washington, it's very important in the united states. it's like we are not in the practice of making distinctions between whose lives are more valuable. a christian's life is very valuable, no one should be slaughtered in syria. no one should be put through assad's killing machine whether these are christians, whether these are iyasidis. i like pushing back on that idea of pushing back on the lives of minorities. minorities are no less valua

. >> jomana, thank you very much, both for your presentation here and also for the really important work you're doing and the information you're able to give us. i wanted to re-emphasize something that you said before when you started off by saying bashar al assad is not a protector of christians, and i think it's important to emphasize that not only because -- not only because it's not true, because he's not a protector of minorities, but also i'm concerned every time that that phrase has residence in washington or in the united states. i feel that's not -- >> or in europe. >> anywhere. i mean, i can't -- you know, that's -- europeans, it's up to the europeans. but here in washington, i